The Pentagon revealed this week that there are nearly 50 Chinese companies with ties to the country’s military that have operations and business ties inside the United States, a dramatic increase from a previous list published in 2021.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz examines the new list shared with Congress, noting it includes “several key weapons makers” such as the Aviation Industry Corp. of China and the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp., as well as two Chinese state-run nuclear companies that have been sanctioned by the Treasury Department in the past for suspected diversion of civilian technology to China’s military.

Mr. Gertz reports that China is building two advanced nuclear reactors with Russian assistance that will produce plutonium for Beijing’s rapid buildup of nuclear weapons, according to a new Air Force think tank study.

The developments help to explain CIA Director William Burns’ revelation in Foreign Affairs this week that his agency is doubling its budget for operations focused on China. Mr. Burns’ assessment dovetails with an appearance Mr. Gertz made last year on “The John Batchelor Show” to discuss China’s efforts to achieve dominance in the field of artificial intelligence.

President Biden has yet to follow through on his vow to respond to the drone attack that killed three U.S. soldiers and injured dozens more in Jordan. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby says the attack was carried out by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias.

We’ll be tracking this through the weekend, as well as other potential developments tied to rising U.S.-Iran friction, including a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington that AEI Scholar Michael Rubin has flagged.

The suit filed on Jan. 30 by a group calling itself the Kurdistan Victims Fund claims operatives with an alleged organized crime-style outfit inside Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government murdered a U.S. intelligence agent. It alleges the operatives attempted to kidnap the agent and trade him to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), but then beat him to death when he resisted. U.S. intelligence officials contacted by Threat Status have thus far declined to comment.

Despite Beijing’s growing military threats against Taiwan, Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reports that the U.S.-backed island democracy still lacks a robust civil defense organization.

In an eye-opening, on-the-scene dispatch filed in the wake of Taiwan’s recent presidential election, Mr. Salmon visited “Red Beach,” the island’s closest point to China, examining how the 7.5-mile strip of sand is a prime site for a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan. He specifically digs into whether the island democracy has the means and the will to hold off its hostile larger neighbor long enough for the U.S. military to join the fight should such a horrific scenario unfold. It’s worth noting the Taiwanese foreign minister’s warning last year that the threat of such an invasion is “real.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has come out in support of deporting the migrants who assaulted two New York City Police officers, challenging the logic of the city’s sanctuary policy and drawing a rebuke from former ICE Director Tom Homan, who ran U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Trump administration. He tells The Times’ Stephen Dinan that Ms. Hochul’s declaration “is just too little too late.”

Regular columnist Joseph R. DeTrani, a former CIA official and longtime diplomatic adviser on Asia, sounds the alarm over North Korea’s increasing military provocations, noting that Pyongyang had three successful ICBM tests in 2023 and has launched more than 100 ballistic missiles, including hypersonic and submarine-launched missiles over the past two years, all while warming relations with Russia. Mr. DeTrani argues that China, which provides North Korea with over 90% of its trade, needs to “convince North Korea that further escalation of tension with South Korea could lead to conflict and war.”

All eyes are on Iran-backed militants: Vahid Beheshti, a London-based leader of the Iranian opposition in exile, argues that the attack in Jordan by Iran-backed Iraqi Shiite militants that killed three U.S. soldiers “needs to be a pivotal moment” in the Mideast. He writes that the attack is “a trial by Iran to test whether the West in general and the U.S. in particular has the stomach to mount a response.”